Poor Will understood this symptom but too well.
“And so you see,” she continued, “I cannot do my part toward entertaining our visitors as I could wish. I have to leave almost everything to the girls and boys. But they are all very happy together, I assure you. Have you seen your brothers and sisters?”
“No, mother,” sadly replied poor Will.
“Well, then, I suppose the boys are in the fields somewhere, and, of course, the girls are with our visitors,” said the old lady, and she spoke so calmly and so naturally that no one unacquainted with the circumstances could possibly have suspected her perfect sanity.
“It seems to me you have grown a great deal since you went to college, Will,” she said, after a pause. Some furtive ray of memory had vaguely suggested that “Will” was a mere boy at the time which her illusions had reproduced, and in which she now lived.
Harcourt knew not what to say better than this:
“You think so, mother?”
“Why, I know so. You are quite a man now. You will be falling in love with some of these pretty girl visitors of mine presently. I wonder where those sisters of yours can be.”
Where they can be? Long ago in the better world, he hoped; but their bodies lay in the churchyard of All Souls’ Parish, at Logwood.
“They are with their visitors, I suppose, and cannot leave; and perhaps they do not know that you are here; for if they did I think they would come running in anyhow—visitors or no visitors. Go find them, dear. They will be so delighted to see you, and they will introduce you to their young lady friends.”